Young Eve Hinman had no burning desire to be a structural engineer. Nor did she have an innate curiosity about the effects of bombs and explosions on buildings. Matter of fact, as a youngster Hinman didn't realize she had an aptitude for math and science. Influenced by her mother's passion, Hinman was on a path to become an artist. Then her life-course shifted. Today Hinman owns Hinman Consulting Engineers, Inc., and is considered a pioneer in the specialized area of blast engineering.

Born in 1959 in Dallas, two years later she moved to Massachusetts with her family. When Hinman was seven, her parents divorced and she and her mother, Gladys, moved to New York City, not far from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

"My mother loved art and as I was growing up she constantly took me to museums and galleries," she said.

In high school Hinman had the opportunity to focus on specialized studies if she passed the required test. Urged by her mother, who had flunked the art test, Hinman passed hers and enrolled in the arts curriculum. While she enjoyed art, Hinman discovered an aptitude for math and science. A good student, she applied to take an advanced placement calculus course in her senior year. School officials turned Hinman down because they thought the course would take away from her art studies.

With little financial support available from her parents, Hinman enrolled in the City University System of New York and lived at home while attending classes. Hinman realized art would not provide the income she'd like. With school loans to pay, she'd need a guaranteed income. Since her father was a psychiatrist, she decided to pursue a similar career. It didn't take long for her to realize that wasn't for her.

"I hated my psychology and sociology courses. They were too arbitrary," she said.

Hinman turned to math and science, where she excelled, getting straight As right and left. "I thought to myself – Wow, I can do this," she said.

This discovery led Hinman to transfer in her third year to Columbia University to pursue a degree in engineering. Columbia's engineering department was small and surprisingly 30 percent of students were women, lessening the additional challenges usually encountered by female engineering students who are in the minority.

In 1982, Hinman received her Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Columbia. Tired of five years of undergrad school, she was anxious to get on with life. But her professors encouraged her to pursue a master's degree. With a full scholarship covering tuition, books, food and living expenses for a year, Hinman continued her education and received a Master of Science in Structural Engineering one year later. Now ready to begin her career, Hinman accepted a position as a research engineer with Weidlinger Associates, Inc. in New York, where she worked on nuclear missile silos and military research – a harbinger of things to come.

When the Beirut bombings began in 1983, Hinman worked with the Department of State to develop design criteria for new embassy buildings. This was the first criteria document for the design of civilian buildings to resist explosive attack in the United States. Her Columbia education had provided the theoretical background necessary for analyzing and designing structures to resist the effect of explosions.

"The field of blast engineering actually found me," she said.

Hinman discovered she had a talent for this segment of engineering and embraced it. She consulted with the federal government, playing a primary role in developing design criteria for new United States Embassies. Following the Beirut bombings, Hinman reluctantly made the decision, with the support of Weidlinger, to get her Doctorate. Hinman worked reduced hours and juggled her career and studies for 10 years, culminating in her Doctor of Engineering Science, Engineering Mechanics degree from Columbia University in 1994.

With her advanced degree, Hinman, now in her 30s, decided that after 11 years at Weidlinger and 26 years in New York City it was time to move on. Hinman moved to San Francisco and became senior staff engineer with the firm Failure Analysis Associates, Inc., in Silicon Valley, where she continued to hone her skills in blast engineering. When the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City occurred in 1995, Hinman became actively involved with the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) and became one of the authors of the original GSA Security Criteria for the design of new federal buildings to mitigate the effects of external and internal explosive threats. Over the next two years, Hinman consulted with a variety of clients on projects directly related to the bombing of the Murrah building, including being retained by the U.S. Department of Justice as an expert witness in the criminal prosecution of Timothy McVeigh, evaluating the failure scenario for the Murrah building and providing an independent estimate of the size of the weapon used.

After two years with Failure Analysis Associates, Hinman started her own company – Hinman Consulting Engineers, Inc., based in San Francisco. Anti-terrorism was becoming a hot focus of the federal government and Hinman, with her talents and experience, was poised to make a name for herself and her company.

Out of 23 employees at Hinman Consulting Engineers, Inc. roughly half are women.

When 9-11 hit, Hinman and her company's services were in high demand as they performed vulnerability assessments throughout the United States for financial institutions and other high risk clients. Many of these sensitive studies remain confidential, but a sampling includes the Morgan Stanley Dean Witter headquarters, One Penn Plaza office building's garage and the Chase Manhattan Bank Headquarters' Child Care Center – all in New York City. Hinman has provided blast consulting services to a number of government agencies, including the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Department of Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Agency for International Development. Hinman has also consulted on federal building designs and structural vulnerability assessments from coast to coast. Internationally, Hinman provided design requirements for numerous foreign posts against car-bomb attacks in Kuwait, Egypt, Sudan, Rwanda, Chile, Russia, Nicaragua and numerous other countries. She evaluated post-incident damage in Pakistan, Uruguay, Brazil, Kenya and Tanzania. With her top secret clearance, no doubt, Hinman has many interesting insights and stories, but she's unable to discuss details of her projects. She did say that her firm is one of only three to six firms specializing in blast engineering, though dozens more dabble in the field.

Since blast engineering design is all about prevention, it begs the question of how does she know if her designs and analysis will work?

"We do limited testing if the client has the budget, plus we depend on other test results and theoretical basics – What we know," she said.

Nevertheless, "what if" scenarios clearly concern Hinman. In the event a disaster does strike a building she's consulted on, will people understand that the design and upgrades may still be successful even if the building is damaged and people sustain injuries? Or will the media focus on the damage and point fingers at her? Will they not see that the building is still standing and loss of life was minimal compared to the tragedy that would have happened prior to the upgrades?

When Hinman isn't consulting on anti-terrorism and forensic investigative engineering, she is speaking and writing about all aspects of her specialty. Hinman has over 30 published articles and books to her credit and has spoken to numerous groups all over the country. Although she admits public speaking is not easy for her, she does enjoy it. She has been interviewed on several national television and radio programs, including NPR, The Discovery Channel and National Geographic.

Hinman Consulting Engineers has two offices: one in San Francisco and one in Alexandria, Va. Out of 23 employees, roughly half are women and three out of four members of the senior engineering management team are women.

When asked why women make good engineers, Hinman didn't hesitate. "Women are able to multitask. They organize their time and they are efficient," she said.

She laughed as she commented that it's really an advantage to be a woman in this field – people always remember the "woman engineer." It's good marketing.

"My mother loved art and as I was growing up she constantly took me to museums and galleries."

Hinman describes her management style as hands-off. She sees her role as strategic – setting up the framework and direction of where the company is going. For those just beginning their engineering career, Hinman's advice is that engineering is not just about technical skills but, more importantly, it's the soft skills – writing, communicating with people, presentations and relating to clients.

On the personal side, Hinman has been married to Norm Meislich, a computer programmer, since 1998. They have two boys, Alex and Jessie, and live outside of San Francisco in Mill Valley. She said she's so thankful for her husband and family. Norm is a stay-at-home dad who does a great job taking care of the boys and cooking though, Hinman said with a chuckle, he's not really great at housekeeping. When Hinman wants to relax she likes to garden. Growing up in Manhattan she had to teach herself but she really enjoys it.

Eve Hinman at home with her two sons, Alex, left, and Jesse, right.

Though Hinman started out to be an artist she has found art in science and engineering – helping to create a safer place for all of us.

Susan Wallace is a freelance writer and co-owner of Vantage Point Communications living in Fayetteville, Ark. She can be contacted at susan@vpointcommunications.com.